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Welcome to Travel Buddy
In this episode, we explore the delicate balance between the soul of travel and the data-driven realities of the industry with special guest Kerry Griffin, VP of Engineering Operations at Switchfly. Kerry shares personal stories and industry expertise, touching on the emotional essence that inspires travel, the impact of technology and metrics, and the evolving role of AI. Listeners will gain fresh perspective on creating joyful travel experiences without losing sight of human connection. Tune in for an insightful conversation that blends heartfelt memories with forward-thinking discussion about the future of travel.
Transcript
Brandon Giella (00:02.414)
So when we think about travel, there is a soul of travel. There is a reason why we travel. But in a metrics obsessed industry that travel and loyalty can be, how do we protect that soul of travel? So that's what we're talking about today. And with me today is special guest.
VP of Engineering Operations at Switchfly, Kerry Griffin. Welcome, Kerry. Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you have been brought in to answer this question.
Kerry (00:35.447)
Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, the soul of travel is something I love to talk about. In my eighth grade yearbook, it asks you what are you going to do in the future? And my answer then was to be a travel agent. So I have been
Brandon Giella (01:00.728)
Really? Okay.
Kerry (01:05.471)
dreaming of travel, thinking of travel, always wanting to be a part of travel my whole life. And when I started in travel, it looked very different. Computers were very basic and they were, you know, old school booking, but there were still paper tickets and...
It wasn't about numbers so much and they reached a point in my career where
A really great leader that I had said, if you want to stay in this industry, you have to understand technology. Or you need to pivot. travel was my thing.
So I wanted to stay. So I pivoted into tech and with tech, I believe data comes, right? Everything's, know, things become about efficiency and delivery and...
Brandon Giella (02:20.001)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (02:29.643)
Hmm.
Kerry (02:30.614)
And that's great. And in the beginning, it was new for me, so it was super exciting. But there definitely came a day that I was like, the beauty of travel is little lost in these tables and graphs and spreadsheets.
Brandon Giella (02:43.51)
Mmm.
Brandon Giella (02:48.137)
I want to dive into this so hard. there's two, there's two aspects of it. And this is true for any industry where you've got this. I mean, this is true for, marketing or the creative arts, especially now with AI, where robots can do so many different things, incredible creative things. and so you've got this, this craftsmanship, this beauty, this, this human spirit that is wild and
Kerry (02:51.594)
You
Brandon Giella (03:16.449)
wondrous and creative. And then you've got this data technology quantitative edge that is, like you said, about productivity, efficiency, throughput, volume, scale, however you want to define that. You've got this tension. Both things are beautiful in their own way.
both things are necessary. An artist can't sit down and create art without being paid, without having payment processing, without understanding, you know, there's so many things that go into it that are quantitative. And so I want to start with, before we dive into the data side of travel now and the tech and the quantitative edge,
I want to talk first about when you think about the beautiful soul human spirit of travel about experiences. Describe that for me. why, what motivates you to love travel to begin with and how would you define the soul of travel?
Kerry (04:27.156)
I think the soul of travel is a very personal thing. It's gonna mean something different to everyone. For me, it is about curiosity.
Kerry (04:48.246)
I love to see and experience what...
what other people are doing and thinking and why they think that way. And you can read a book and back in my day, there were encyclopedias that were very dated, you know, but we didn't know that then, but being able to go somewhere and smell it and touch it and feel it and see it, it just opens up.
the mind in a way that I don't think that you can get just by hearing someone else's experience. I mean, I think it's great to be able to share those things, but to be able to do it yourself is for me the biggest sense of making memories, expanding the mind, like just...
Brandon Giella (05:37.442)
Hmm.
Kerry (05:56.373)
To me, that's what brings me joy. And I've never found a replacement for that. And it could be as simple as going to a new city in the state that I live in or a country that has completely different culture and customs and food. You can find magic anywhere.
Brandon Giella (06:24.481)
is your favorite place you've ever traveled?
Kerry (06:29.622)
So my grandparents, they moved to the US from Ireland. And when I was a kid, my mom used to always talk about it. She was born in New York. And when I was eight, I gave her...
Brandon Giella (06:38.285)
Mm.
Kerry (06:53.494)
a box from the department store with all the money in my piggy bank, which was a lot of change and singles, and a note. And I said, I don't have enough money now, but one day I will and I'll take you to Ireland. And when I was an adult, I was able to take my mom.
to Ireland and we went to the town that my grandfather was from and he had already passed away at that point and my mom
She like, we go into this pub and she had all these old photos. I'm like, what are you doing? And she was like, maybe someone knows. And I'm like, mom, they're not gonna know. And she pulled them out and she talked to the bartender and he was like, that's the Kelly family. And they're like, they own the mechanic down the street. And...
he ended up calling them and we
They came to the pub and we were able to go to where my grandfather, they were cousins. So it was their father's brother. We got to meet them. And that was just from going, that wasn't a planned thing. It was planned to go to the town. It was not planned because we didn't have any contact. And to be able to experience that with my mom and to see her
Kerry (08:39.542)
The joy that brought her, that's my favorite memory.
Brandon Giella (08:47.914)
that is the soul of travel. I love that. That's a beautiful story.
Kerry (08:54.73)
Yeah, it was was magic.
Brandon Giella (08:58.38)
So I want to shift gears toward the quantitative side of travel. What is it about the quantitative side of travel in the industry itself that can warp or distort that experience that you had? Does that make sense? Like, like that's the soul of why we do this.
Kerry (09:19.702)
Yeah.
Kerry (09:23.52)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (09:24.678)
and there's something that gets lost in trying to make that a business, which is not wrong. We have to pay for fuel, we have to pay for tickets, people to help you, like there's all of that. But what is it that gets lost in that process?
Kerry (09:46.657)
think there's a lot of things. think though at the highest level, when people start talking about metrics, it almost becomes a race. to be more productive, to improve metrics, right? And when...
you start thinking that way and having that conversation, my experience has been that the why of what you're doing changes. The why you're doing something is to deliver faster, to deliver better.
And sometimes people forget the real why is the customer experience. I don't disagree with technology. In fact, I live it every day. I love it. And I also believe in efficiency. But I also think we should be asking ourselves throughout the day, how will this impact the traveler?
How can we make the travelers experience more efficient and better so they have more time to focus on the soul? The easier the booking, changing, check-in, all of that can be. There's more time in the travelers day to have
the magical moments, the new moments, to taste the food, to smell things. So I think we forget to think about at the end of the day, our traveler is the reason why we're doing this, to open up time for them to enjoy the travel.
Brandon Giella (12:07.264)
When I think about this.
this concept, a word comes to mind of stewardship. And that word comes to mind because you as a travel executive, somebody who is a leader in the space, has some influence about how it's shaped in whatever way that looks like. You're stewarding this traveler's experience, this very precious thing. And in order to do that well, to be a wise steward, you do have to think about, how much does this cost?
What's the timeline? How can we make this better? How can we make this more efficient? Because that's part of wisdom, that's part of our role, but it can be overdone.
where it's focused on that. And there's this great book I pulled out when thinking about this outline. It's called The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Mueller. And he talks about how, and he goes through several different industries, education, healthcare, and so on, where there's this standard that's set to try to improve the efficiency or improve the scale or whatever. And by setting that standard, the teachers or the healthcare professionals start to grade or be
be graded by that standard rather than the patient experience or the student's experience. And then the actual student experience or the patient experience gets ruined by that standard. So there's this interplay. But I have to say that there's something else that comes up for me, which is...
Brandon Giella (13:44.456)
In a financial context, there's this great book called Narrative in Numbers by Oswald de Moterun, is a finance professor at NYU Stern School of Business. And he's like a valuation expert. So he is like the quantitative king. But he's got this book called Narrative in Numbers to say that valuation in these quant side of finance is heavily shaped by the story, the art, the narrative, and that financial markets take place with that. you have financial experts,
you know, known for being quantitative. They live in spreadsheets and financial models and I think it's like one of the most intellectually demanding industries out there and but it's also super creative. It's a very, creative industry even though it's heavily quantitative and I would suspect engineering and travel is as well. That it's very, very quantitative but there's a lot of creativity and beauty and narrative that comes in with that as you just described.
So where I want to go with this is where do you think that the industry started to lose, call it the soul of travel, the beauty and the creativity and started to become more metrics driven? Was there a moment in time or in, you know, the trends of technology unfolding that you started to really feel that or sense that maybe when your mentor was like, Hey, you should focus on tech. Cause that's where the industry's going. Is that.
Does that track with kind of this broader trend in the industry as well?
Kerry (15:19.478)
So travel has always had thin margins. And so I do believe that there's always been kind of a watch on that. But...
Brandon Giella (15:27.847)
Mm-hmm.
Kerry (15:40.715)
There is, there was definitely a massive shift after 9-11. There, you know, before 9-11, we didn't have TSA. You could go to the gate, right? And then we had, you know, planes.
Brandon Giella (15:51.699)
Hmm, interesting.
Kerry (16:09.628)
Airlines lost a lot of money. They had to park a lot of planes and when they came back, they started to run full, right? There were, before 9-11, there were a lot of times you would get on a plane and it was half full, three quarters full because there were so many flights and
and then margins shrunk even more. And then prices started to go up. We have all these fees now that help offset some of the cost of security. And I do think that was at the time technology had come in a few years before that. everything kind of came together.
Brandon Giella (16:44.393)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (16:49.001)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (17:04.363)
Hmm.
Kerry (17:07.508)
don't have like, this is the moment of time, I can say from my experience, that's definitely the shift. How we marketed things in travel changed after that. The landscape of those things changed. And I think it...
Brandon Giella (17:11.335)
Yeah, yeah,
Brandon Giella (17:23.179)
Hmm.
Kerry (17:33.585)
everybody was kind of like, how do we keep this a strong, viable industry without losing money? And with the advancements of technology,
Brandon Giella (17:50.911)
Yeah.
Kerry (17:58.943)
I think the focus just re it became a race, right? You had different OTAs, had suppliers, whether airline, hotel, what have you, have it, you know, improving their websites. And my dream as a kid of becoming a travel agent and you know, those all of those went away, right? And it
It really changed and technology definitely was a race. People were watching who was doing what. Expedia's doing this. Travelocity's doing that. Orbitz is doing this. we got to beat them to the punch. So the focus became fast to be
Brandon Giella (18:51.945)
Hmm and cheap. Yeah
Kerry (18:53.906)
Yeah, to be, I don't know if it would be cheap, but it would be to win, to come out with the best product quick. So you could, you could still be a pioneer.
Brandon Giella (18:57.652)
Hmm.
Hmm. Hmm.
Kerry (19:12.272)
And I think there were times that you stopped, you didn't have time to think about the soul.
Brandon Giella (19:26.443)
This is so calming for me. This is like a therapy session. Thank you. I we've talked about things that have been hard in our travel experiences on the show before I told this story. This is a recent story last time I traveled like two months ago where I had a baby. I have a baby and it was an infant in lap.
Kerry (19:29.941)
No.
Brandon Giella (19:48.087)
and they said we couldn't have an infant in lap in our particular seat on the right side of the plane because it would imbalance this particular aircraft. And I'm like, I don't know that when I'm picking these seats, I have no idea. And so they had to shuffle us all around. My three year old was like 15 rows ahead of us. And then, you we had our baby and my wife and I were split up and it was just a total mess because of the balance of the aircraft was off because of a 17 pound baby. So it was like this weird experience for me that I think was because of the
or the spreadsheet or the computer system or whatever had just like, it calculated something about our particular seats and and ruined our experience in my opinion. We had to sit at the kiosk for like almost an hour to work this out, to get our seats back. Anyway, I say all that to say, this is really important and this is personal for people's travel experiences, but also the business, the aircraft has to fly, it has to be efficient, it's got to be profitable. All of that makes sense. It's just this balance.
I'm wondering from your perspective, if you think AI is going to be better or worse for protecting the soul of travel or getting back to this travelers experience. Like, like, do you think it's going to help us get back there or what?
Kerry (21:06.39)
I hope so, because I don't think we have a choice, right? You know, I think of this...
Brandon Giella (21:08.221)
Okay, I'll take it.
Kerry (21:19.286)
Like I mentioned, I was in travel when we still had paper tickets. And when airlines were moving to electronic tickets, some people are slower to change, right? They didn't trust it. They liked having the cardboard in their hand.
Brandon Giella (21:47.243)
I heard somebody say that last time I was in the airport. They were like, just like having the paper ticket. Yeah.
Kerry (21:51.471)
Yeah, and I think there's something, you you have some people who are slower and you have some people who are like, yeah, let's go. So.
But it happened, right? Like they moved to electronic tickets and for a while you had an option for paper. And then basically they said, you know, no longer, this is no longer an option for them to give you a paper ticket. Now, could you print yours today? Yes, but it's still an electronic ticket. And that's kind of how I think of AI. It's happening.
Brandon Giella (22:22.718)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kerry (22:36.05)
It's whether you like it or not, it's gonna, it's going to, it's happening, it's happened, you know, and it's just gonna keep evolving. So I think you have to embrace it and try to...
Brandon Giella (22:45.308)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kerry (23:02.524)
see the good, right? And my hope is just like I would like to make the traveler
logistical experience better with technology to free them up to enjoy more of the travel experience. I hope that AI is also beneficial in that way. I think there's a lot of great things that it can do to make things more efficient.
I like humans. I really like human connection. I come to an office every day because I like to see people. It is just part of what feeds my soul. So do I have...
Brandon Giella (23:47.946)
That's good.
Brandon Giella (23:54.729)
Mm-hmm.
Kerry (24:07.87)
little fears of like taking away, making things so automated that you no longer have that connection. Sure, I do. But I also am hopeful that it makes some things more efficient and smoother.
Brandon Giella (24:17.492)
Yeah.
Kerry (24:32.326)
so that the human connection, people have more time for that, right? Everybody's busy. Everyone I talk to is so busy. And it's like, maybe this will allow people to be a little less busy and be able to have the cup of coffee and chat. I also think your experience,
Brandon Giella (24:44.17)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (24:48.809)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (24:53.81)
Yeah.
Kerry (25:01.446)
on the plane.
I think part of thinking about how the soul of travel is,
Kerry (25:18.496)
thinking about how many different kinds of travelers there are. There are some travelers who travel for work. They know the steps. They know everything like the back of their hand. There are some people who might travel once every five years and things change quickly and it can be daunting.
I don't want it to be daunting. I want it to be joyful, even if it's, you know, like, I don't want people to walk in and be like, my gosh, I'm overwhelmed. And then that, that to me sucks part of the soul of travel. So how can we just make all of it more enjoyable?
Brandon Giella (26:05.32)
you
Brandon Giella (26:11.366)
I love that you have this emphasis on the human spirit and the soul of travel. And you're the VP of engineering operations at a tech company. just think that's so great. I think it's so important. That balance is so important. Yes, I agree. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Amen. Amen. I love it. I love it. Okay. So imagine you are queen over the entire travel industry and
Kerry (26:23.964)
But I definitely think it is an and, it's not a but.
Brandon Giella (26:40.37)
you can write a dictum about what is going to happen to recoup the soul of travel. What would be your advice or your campaign or your positions that you would take that you think would really help balance these two worlds?
Kerry (27:12.596)
Wow, that is some question.
Brandon Giella (27:16.081)
Yeah
Kerry (27:26.088)
I think that...
making travel...
more accessible to people. I actually believe travel is completely accessible. No matter what kind of economic, disability pieces that people might be held back from, I don't think they know that though.
I think there are people who
think, it's so expensive. Oh, you know, I can't do that. It's out, it's not for me. Or I have a disability and it's too hard. There are a lot of programs and things that make it easier when you get to an airport to get from point A to point B, but.
Kerry (28:44.234)
To me, that is where we can make those resources easier to find so that more people can experience it. I definitely think they're in travel. There are...
Kerry (29:08.618)
people who...
are too overwhelmed by the whole
process. But I really think it's because they haven't tried, right? It becomes too daunting. Like, I can't, you want me to go to New York City and get on a subway? Like, I've never done public transportation before. And it's not that...
Brandon Giella (29:21.865)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (29:41.17)
Hmm.
Kerry (29:45.811)
Yes, it's a lot of people. It can be crowded. You have to read signs, but if you give yourself some time and you look around, I 100 % know someone would help you. You just got to take that leap and once you do it once, you'll want to do it again. Other things won't seem so scary.
Brandon Giella (30:05.915)
Hmm
Brandon Giella (30:16.539)
laughing because it makes me think of I'm flying tomorrow to Florida for spring break I have a three-year-old and a ten-month-old and when I first started traveling with two kids I was like my gosh I'm never gonna do this again
But you do get the hang of it. It is a little daunting, but you take it one step at a time. It's like parenting, I guess. I don't know. You just jump in. It's going to be OK. It doesn't mean you have to fly to Italy and go on a vineyard or whatever. There's a lot of different things that you can do when you think of travel. It doesn't have to be this exotic location. It can be great things.
Kerry (30:52.766)
Yeah, and you don't even have to get on a plane if you don't want to. I mean, you can travel by land. It is, or boat.
Brandon Giella (30:58.255)
Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. Yes, that is true. Yep. Yeah. I haven't been on a boat in a long time. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I totally agree. Last question for you. What do you hope that the travel industry never loses as it continues to evolve, especially in the age of AI?
Kerry (31:32.359)
I hope it doesn't lose the human connection, right? And that could be anything from...
Having a person at the airport help the new traveler, right? Know what they're supposed to do. Or a customer service agent on the phone.
Kerry (32:08.328)
I also think like being able to connect with other people about it. think...
You know, to me, like sharing reviews or photos and things like that, that's all technology these days. That also opens up people's minds to be able to be like, I didn't know you could do that there. Right. It gives more options and helps people like do things they might not have ever even thought to do. Right.
I think for me, travel allows you to do things you never imagined. If you only, if you came into life with a list of things like, here's my bucket list that I wrote when I was five, and that is your main mission in life to complete that.
I believe you're missing out on so many things because to me, I've been a lot of places and I've done a lot of things and I know there's a million more things I haven't even tried yet. And so I think you sell yourself short if you think you know it all. And you just need to be curious.
Brandon Giella (33:32.297)
you
Brandon Giella (33:38.793)
There are so many things that you don't even have the imagination to think of yet. That are out there that you literally could go today or do today, but your imagination hasn't even stretched that far. It's really amazing. Amazing.
Kerry (33:46.166)
Correct.
Kerry (33:54.837)
Yes.
Brandon Giella (33:58.269)
Well, Kerry, this has been a lovely conversation and I'm so grateful that we were able to talk about this because I think it's so important. mean, you are your VP of engineering operations at a tech company and you have this incredible perspective and orientation toward the human spirit and travel, the soul of travel, bringing back experiences into why we're doing this to begin with. And I just love that balance. I love that integration.
And I think it's such important work that you're doing so thank you for sharing it with us, and hopefully we'll have you back on the show Thank you, thank you. We'll see you next time
Kerry (34:35.52)
Thank you. It's been great.
Thank you.
